There is a striking fact about this week's Deloitte Money League, an incomplete but compelling snapshot of the earning power of the 20 biggest clubs in Europe. All have bigger stadiums than Tottenham Hotspur, the club sitting in 12th place. Canny wheeling and dealing, Champions League qualification and the Premier League's bumper collective TV deals are allowing them to punch above their weight. But once Uefa's financial fair-play rules kick in from next season, the constrained – and less than salubrious – surroundings of White Hart Lane will become even more of a burden.

Daniel Levy, the Spurs chairman, has received plaudits for managing the club sensibly on behalf of Enic, the holding company in which the offshore billionaire Joe Lewis is the majority shareholder. From his luxury tax haven in the Bahamas, he has watched as Levy has forged a winning partnership with the manager Harry Redknapp, loosening the purse strings sufficiently to build a squad capable of beating the holders Internazionale in the Champions League group stage while not racking up heavy debts. But the required investment in players and wages is starting to tell and turned a £33.4m profit in the year to July 2009 into a £6.6m pre-tax loss the following year. Since then, William Gallas, Rafael van der Vaart and others have been added at a cost of £19.9m.

A full stadium of relatively wealthy fans is bursting at the seams and Levy has for the past five years been trying to do something about it. For most of that time, the mantra has been "investment in the first team, a new training centre and an increased-capacity state-of the-art new stadium". But while the first two have been achieved, the latter has remained frustratingly elusive and the additional burden placed on the club by Uefa's impending rules has not gone unnoticed in the White Hart Lane boardroom.

In an open letter to fans to convince them of the wisdom of moving to Stratford, Levy spelt it out in plain terms. "The new financial fair-play rules will mean that we shall only be able to outlay income generated through the activities of the club – increased matchday revenues play a major role in a club's finances and we need to ensure that we are in a position to thrive and to continue to compete at the highest level."

But as £450m plans to redevelop White Hart Lane became mired in frustration – Spurs claim they were faced with ever more onerous demands by English Heritage, Transport for London and Haringey council, who in turn claim they were not consulted early enough – Levy has watched his near neighbours with envy. Since pulling off the trick of selling their iconic home and swapping it for a new purpose-built stadium and funding the whole thing with a complex property transaction, their north London rivals Arsenal have rocketed away in revenue-generating terms. According to Deloitte's figures, 42% of Arsenal's £224.4m revenues came from their matchday income, as fans pack the executive levels. At Spurs, the proportion is just 31% of the total of £119.8m.

As such, Levy was increasingly convinced that the Stratford option is the answer to Tottenham's prayers. "If you want progress, you need to be bold. All I care about is moving the club forward," he said last week. "When it comes to me buying players I can't deal with emotion, I need to deal with the reality of what's going on in football."

What began as a stalking horse to increase the club's negotiating power with Haringey, TfL and English Heritage quickly became the preferred option. The appeal of an open site, on which a new stadium could have been completed while football was still played at White Hart Lane, and the associated spin-off benefits of some of the best transport links in the capital, an association with AEG and the ability to sell naming rights and hospitality packages upfront, would have turbocharged Levy's masterplan and hugely boosted the club's value.

Now that avenue appears to have been closed off, amid furious recrimination and possible legal threats from the Spurs side, Levy will return to the drawing board.

But he is running out of time. The balancing act of investing in the playing squad to compete at the top level and bringing in enough revenue to pay for it will become increasingly difficult to pull off.

Levy insists he is serious when he says the Haringey option is grounded. Despite planning consent having been granted, Spurs have yet to acquire all of the land required to begin the development scheme that would fund it. The mutual distrust that now exists between all parties, and the difficulty of pulling off a large-scale redevelopment project in a relatively poor part of London during a recession will pose added difficulties.

Banks may now be reluctant to fund the scheme given the state of the economy and the fact that Levy has been forced to talk up the problems involved – partly in order to sell the Stratford scheme to sceptical fans. Meanwhile, a new rival for fans and hospitality revenue could rise in the east if – and it remains a big if – West Ham's bold plan comes to fruition.

Levy will explore new sites and insists he will not give up on his quest to build a bigger stadium. But if he starts looking out towards Enfield, he will lose the links with the City that are all-important to maximise commercial and hospitality revenue.

For all Levy's insistence to the contrary, it is not inconceivable that the protracted search for a stadium could eventually leave Spurs at the mercy of big-money bids for their most coveted players, including Luka Modric and Gareth Bale. The question for fans is whether this season's glorious Champions League campaign will be seen by history as the starting point for the club's ascendancy to the European elite, as Levy always hoped, or as a fleeting adventure.